A YEAR BEFORE LOSING TEXAS: A TRAVELERS' MEMOIRS

(Ed.'s Note: Charles Joseph La Trobe was born in London in 1801 and traveled to the United States and Mexico. In 1832 he visited the United States along with Count Albert Pourtales and American writer Washington Irving. In 1834 he traveled from New Orleans to Mexico. At the time Mexico was in constant "revolutions" and La Trobe wrote The Rambler in Mexico during the Texas uprising and establishment of the republic which resulted eventually in the Mexican American War and the loss of more than half of the Mexican territory. Here he comments on the unending revolutions and the then- pattern of government takeovers by various strongmen which plagued the country. From 1830 to 1836, there were 14 different presidents, with Santa Anna holding the office three times. La Trobe was appointed in 1839 as superintendent of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, Australia.)

By Charles Joseph Latrobe

From: The Rambler in Mexico

Published 1836 By Harper an Brothers

Unhappy Mexico! No sooner has a government seemed to be fairly seated, and felt itself called to exercise authority, and to enforce the laws, than some discontented partisan runs off to a distance from the capital, gets a band of malecontents together, sets up a "grito" or bark, to give warning that something is brewing; follows it up in due time by a pronunciamiento against the existing rulers; proposes a modification of the constitution; and, collecting an army, makes a dash at the metropolis. 

Perhaps, as was the fate of Canalizza's party (Jose Valentin Raimundo Canalizo Bocadillo, known

as Valentín Canalizo, was a Mexican President, state governor, city mayor, army general, defense minister and conservative politician. He is as yet the only Mexican President from the city of Monterrey)

, while we were in the country, he gets beaten on his way, and running abroad to escape the vengeance of his conqueror, leaves his adherents to make their peace as well as they may: perhaps, like the hero of the day, (General Antonio Lopez de) Santa Anna, he succeeds, and gets possession of the presidential chair, to be kicked out in his turn, without a shadow of doubt, sooner or later. 

It would fill a volume, and be a perfect jest book, to give a history of all the changes experienced by this country since the expulsion of the Spaniards; and the real intentions, ends, and characters of those by whom they have been brought about.

The most serious evil is, that in this state of affairs nothing can be accounted stable. The sound principles of government, perchance professed by a party most frequently perish with theose who upheld them.

How was it when we were in Mexico?

Santa Anna, a man of but little genius or talent, but cleverer than those about him in the low arts of intrigue, and into those well-laid traps more than one old associate had fallen, was at the head of of the reform government as president. 

The preceding year, General ( Gabriel) Duran had attempted to get up a revolution in favor of the so-called "privileged" classes/" This year Canalizza (Canalizo) had run off to the eastward in the manner I had described; and, under what patriotic cry I forget, had issued a pronunciamiento, proposing to set up a counter government, according to the custom of the country.

If I mistake not, Brigadier General Nicolas Bravo was down in the southwest, with the same intentions.

The vice president, Valentin Gomez Farias, was at couteau tire (drawn kniveswith the president; and the latter had under the veil of leave of absence from the capital, for the restoration of his health, gone off in a very bad humor, to pout at his estate near Jalapa; where the general belief was, that he was brewing some mischief of his own. in favor of the army and the church, both of which were decidedly under a cloud in the actual state of things.

The latter especially begin to tremble for its wealth, which the necessitous federacion considered in the light of a lawful prize.

The surmise was right, as the event showed; for not long after, the wily president himself was pleased to set up his "bark" and abjuring the reform party, on whose shoulders he had climbed to power, made a run for the capital, beat his old friends, and throwing himself into the arms of the "privileged classes," was again elected president.

Since that time another "grito" has been given by the Zazatecanos, who revolted again,under favor of that pet cry of the giddy multitude in the age of which we live – reform! and getting together six thousand civicos or militias, and thirty-two pieces of artillery, defended their city.

Santa Anna's star again prevailed; and he beat them also. Durango then gave him a little more trouble; and now it's Texas, with its unruly colonists, has called him to the north. He may chance to hear some other do "barking" in the capital before he gets back. Is this not laughable? 

(We thank Cameron County Tax Assessor-Collector Tony Yzaguirre for making his copy of this rare book available.)